--> ''"Superheroes have always flourished in the times of greatest American adversity. During the depression era, we were afraid of not being able to put food on the table. We were afraid of becoming involved in a great world war that would take our freedom away. In the atomic age, we were afraid of radiation. Now, we're afraid of terrorist attacks. In all of those eras of history, that's when superheroes have enjoyed their greatest resurgence."''-->-- '''MarkWaid''', ''Superheroes: A Never-Ending Battle''

A curious phenomenon in which, every decade or so, some aspect of American society which is not normally in the public eye becomes the subject of fad-like levels of interest, which both leads and is led by media coverage of the topic. Curiosity about the day-to-day workings of the group or subculture begins at a minor, almost cursory, level -- but over the course of months this interest gets driven to a frenzy pitch as it suddenly becomes ''necessary'' for every person on the street to know ''everything'' they can about it. Often, features of the subculture become embraced by society at large, including but not limited to copying elements of their lifestyle, absorbing their jargon, and creating culture heroes.

This obsessive interest often lasts long enough for stage plays, TV shows or movies on the subject to be made, which usually appear just as the cycle of interest peaks or is dying away. Marketers usually jump on the bandwagon as the cycle reaches its zenith, trying to profit from the vast amount of public interest; it's likely that the sudden commercialization actually contributes to the subsequent, and perhaps inevitable, downturn in that interest.

As the subculture falls "out of style", there is sometimes a backlash against it. Either way, it is followed by a fallow period, which itself is followed by a more relaxed reacceptance of some or all of the co-opted subculture elements. The culture at large then usually remains quiescent for several years before discovering some new subculture to obsess over, thus beginning the cycle anew.

Cycles are frequently triggered by some innocuous entry into the meme pool, like a popular song or book. See also FollowTheLeader, TheRedStapler, PopularityPolynomial.----!!Examples:* In the late 1950s and early 1960s, the previously secretive world of advertising agencies suddenly became the focus of immense cultural interest. The inner workings of Madison Avenue became the fodder for books, plays, TV shows, and movies (''The Man In the Grey Flannel Suit'', ''HowToSucceedInBusinessWithoutReallyTrying'', ''Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter'', ''Series/{{Bewitched}}'', ''Lover Come Back''). Its unique internal jargon, often focused on CYA and consensus building, briefly flooded American speech; some bits of it still remain (for instance, "run it up the flagpole and see who salutes", which was a well-worn cliche decades before it appeared in Music/HarveyDanger's 1997 song "Flagpole Sitta"), and the TV series ''Series/MadMen'' seems primed to revive much of the old adman slang. (As a nod to the old fad, ''Mad Men'' casts Robert Morse, the leading man in the original 1961 Broadway production of ''How to Succeed in Business...'', as the eccentric Bert Cooper).* {{Blaxploitation}} in TheSeventies, which came back in the early 90's in the form of urban gangster films (Boyz N The Hood, New Jack City), and several times in the last twenty years thanks to Creator/QuentinTarantino. * The success of ''Series/QueerEye'' gave us a period of infatuation with "[[WhereEverybodyKnowsYourFlame gay culture]]" (in other words, every [[StereotypeGay gay stereotype]] possible). This period even gave us "metrosexuals", men who, [[AmbiguouslyGay despite not actually being gay]], [[CampStraight spoke, dressed, and acted as much like flaming queens]] as possible. It also led to the replacement of ''fop'' with this neologism; a literal reading of the word would mean either "one who is sexually attracted to moderation", "one who is sexually attracted to cities", "[[Theatre/OedipusRex one who is sexually attracted to mothers]]", or possibly "one who is sexually attracted to a subway system"... [[FetishFuel not that those things don't exist.]]* The post-UsefulNotes/WorldWarII villains ''du jour'' in American media have been: Sinister Russian [[DirtyCommunists Commies]] during the postwar period, Sinister Muslim [[ArabOilSheikh Oil Barons]] during the energy crises of TheSeventies, Sinister Russians again during TheEighties and TheNineties (with [[TheNewRussia a transition]] from commies to [[TheMafiya gangsters and arms dealers]] after [[TheGreatPoliticsMessUp around 1990]]), and Sinister Muslim Terrorists during TheWarOnTerror. UsefulNotes/VladimirPutin is alleged to be working hard to maintain the cycle. The alleged perpetrators of the April 2013 Boston bombing turning out to be [[BreadEggsBreadedEggs Sinister Russian Muslims]] probably indicates this perception isn't going away anytime soon.* OlderThanRadio: Japonisme.** Older Than Japonisme: Chinoiserie.** Orientalism in general, really. The Western world was unhealthily fixated on [[TheThemeParkVersion "genuine"]] Indian culture at the turn of last century, and still is to a degree.* American interest in AncientEgypt peaked with both the discovery of King UsefulNotes/{{Tutankhamun}}'s tomb in the 1920's and the touring exhibit of his relics in the 1970's.** The relics are on another exhibition tour now. Whether this will spark another such fad remains to be seen.** In the early [=XIXth=] century, UsefulNotes/NapoleonBonaparte's Egypt campaigns and the subsequent popularisation of ancient Egyptian culture also generated a fad for [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egyptian_Revival all things]] [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egyptian_revival_decorative_arts pharaonic]].* {{Anime}} may fit this. Outside of Japan, it was an underground subculture that made its first inroads in the West with ''Anime/AstroBoy'' and ''Anime/SpeedRacer'', then percolated in TheSeventies (''Anime/StarBlazers'') and TheEighties (''Anime/{{Robotech}}'') before bursting into mainstream in the mid-1990s, peaking in the early 2000s when 85% of people under 35 watched at least one hour of anime a week. It hasn't faded away completely, but it has declined in popularity since the mid-2000s. Much of this may be due to declining quality as production houses, looking to exploit the new American market, focused on making shows that were either fast and cheap or overly filled with injokes for anime fans.* Reportedly, what we currently know as the "Tea Parties" have long since existed, emerging every fifteen years or so.** For the confused, we mean right-wing, anti-UsefulNotes/{{Washington|DC}} (neo-) populist movements in the US, not parties where [[SpotOfTea people drink tea]], which emerge every fifteen minutes (at least in the UK). It tends to reach a fever pitch of media attention every fifteen years, manifesting itself as the "[[UsefulNotes/RonaldReagan Reagan]] Revolution" and the "sagebrush rebels" in the late '70s and early '80s, the "Contract with America" in the mid '90s, and the Tea Party movement today. The left-wing version appears as well, but less frequently: recent examples include the craze over UsefulNotes/BarackObama and the "Occupy" movements fitting this trope.* From about 1985 to 1990, HeavyMetal music became hugely popular. Everywhere you looked kids were growing their hair long, buying leather jackets, and throwing up the devil horns hand gesture. Heavy Metal's popularity reached such high levels that the MoralGuardians of the day even held Senate hearings trying to force record companies to put warning labels on albums with explicit lyrics. When {{Grunge}} killed HairMetal in 1991, many record companies as well as Creator/{{MTV}} also forgot about heavy metal in favor of the newest trend. As a result public interest in heavy metal dropped significantly but still managed to maintain a devoted fanbase, with bands like Music/{{Pantera}} managing to become very successful during the 1990s despite receiving little attention from mainstream media sources. In the mid-2000s heavy metal experienced a resurgance in popularity due to the highly successful ''VideoGame/GuitarHero'' video game franchise, although metal still doesn't have the mainstream popularity that it did in the latter half of the 80s.* [[TropesOfTheLivingDead Zombies]] -- or rather, [[CrazyPrepared zombie-related survivalism]] -- is an example of a subculture that developed with the craze. It started in the early-mid '00s, when a number of highly popular zombie films (''Film/ResidentEvil'', ''Film/TwentyEightDaysLater'', ''Film/DawnOfTheDead2004'', ''Film/ShaunOfTheDead'') came out within two years of one another, helping to bring back from the grave a genre that had been lying stiff since TheEighties. From there, the infection burned through film, books, comics, games, music videos, television, and especially the internet, where the ZombieApocalypse mutated into a {{meme|ticMutation}}.[[note]]There, is that enough [[AWorldwidePunomenon undead-related puns]] for you?[[/note]] Shows like ''Series/{{Community}}'', ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'' and ''Series/{{Degrassi}}'' had zombie-themed {{Halloween episode}}s, communities the world over staged zombie walks and games of ''LARP/HumansVsZombies'', and ''everybody'' had at least considered "a plan". Preparedness groups and even the Center for Disease Control jumped on board, using the pop culture's obsession with zombies as a way to tell people to be prepared for disasters and emergencies.** For that matter, survivalism in general tends to ebb and flow depending on the times. It first flourished in TheSeventies due to fear of economic collapse and social unrest, and appeared again in the mid-'80s due to fear of WorldWarIII and in the late '90s thanks to fear of [[MillenniumBug Y2K]]. Currently, it's at another high point due to both the economic crisis and, to a lesser extent, the [[MayanDoomsday alleged Mayan doomsday prophecy]], with reality shows like ''Doomsday Preppers'' and scripted series like ''Series/TheWalkingDead'' and ''Series/{{Revolution}}'' all rooted in survivalism. Needless to say, companies selling gold, canned foods, and guns and ammunition love this trend.** The widespread worry about nuclear war in the late 1940's and 1950's should count as an even earlier example of survivalism, although there were no zombies. Bomb shelters were a popular home-improvement project in some circles (even inspiring ''Series/TheTwilightZone1959'' episode "The Shelter"), the sci-fi and comics of the time practically LIVED on tropes related to nuclear apocalypse and radiation mutations, and many of Baby Boomer age still chuckle about the deadly-serious suggestion given in educational filmstrips that hiding under one's school desk was a viable way of avoiding a city-melting fireball. Science-fiction author Robert Heinlein deliberately fed the hysteria in a series of essays (see his collection "Expanded Universe") meant to scare people badly enough to get nukes banned. Didn't work, obviously, but a case could be made that he accidentally "created" survivalism.* {{Vampire|Tropes}}s, the ''other'' undead monsters, at roughly the same time as zombies. While the zombie obsession was largely born out of geek culture, the vampire craze came from teenagers, particularly teenage girls, beginning when ''Literature/{{Twilight}}'' romanticized the creatures to a degree that Creator/AnneRice and Creator/JossWhedon could scarcely have imagined. It truly took off once the ''Twilight'' movies came out, with vampires becoming ''the'' symbols of romance for an entire generation of women born between 1985 and 1995. Shows like ''Series/TrueBlood'' and ''TheVampireDiaries'' only fed the craze.* Thanks to [[UsefulNotes/ColdWar cold war intrigue]] and the success of the ''Film/JamesBond'' franchise, TheSixties produced a fascination with [[SpyFiction spies and spy culture]]. Shows such as ''Series/ISpy'', ''Series/TheManFromUNCLE'', ''Series/TheAvengers'', ''Series/MissionImpossible'', and the parody ''Series/GetSmart'', films like ''Film/TheIpcressFile'' (along with parodies like ''Film/OurManFlint'' and Music/TheBeatles' spoof ''Film/{{Help}}''), spy movie-influenced songs like Johnny Rivers' "Secret Agent Man" and Edwin Starr's "Agent Double-O-Soul", books by Creator/JohnLeCarre and Creator/LenDeighton, and spy undertones in ''WesternAnimation/RockyAndBullwinkle'' and ''WesternAnimation/SecretSquirrel'' abounded, and spy toys were popular with young children. The craze died out as the Cold War fizzled, but its influence can be found in ''Film/TheBourneSeries'' and the Film/AustinPowers movies and cartoons like ''WesternAnimation/KimPossible'' and ''WesternAnimation/TotallySpies''. The genre has experienced a new lease of life in the wake of 9/11 and the subsequent WarOnTerror.* UsefulNotes/AssociationFootball, a.k.a. soccer, became highly popular in the United States during the late 1970's with the New York Cosmos's signing of several big name international stars such as Pelé and Franz Beckenbauer. After Pelé's retirement, the game's popularity declined and the league folded. Interest revived somewhat with the 1994 World Cup, when the U.S. hosted the event and the men's team reached the knockout stage for the first time in over 60 years, and again in the 2010 World Cup when the men's team won their group on a stoppage-time goal. The establishment of Major League Soccer, and more recently the National Women's Soccer League, may eventually make soccer less of a fad and more of an ongoing niche interest.* UsefulNotes/{{Dinosaurs}} enjoyed a period of popularity in the 1990's thanks to ''Film/JurassicPark'', to the point that the movie singlehandedly made the ''[[RaptorAttack Velociraptor]]'' a {{Stock Dinosaur|s}}. They seem to be coming back in 2014 and 2015, with the ''Franchise/JurassicPark'' franchise getting [[Film/JurassicWorld a revival]], ''Franchise/{{Transformers}}'' and ''Franchise/PowerRangers'' getting [[Film/TransformersAgeOfExtinction dinosaur]]-[[Series/PowerRangersDinoCharge themed]] installments, and the release of a few [[WesternAnimation/TheGoodDinosaur other]] [[VideoGame/FossilFighters dinosaur]]-[[ComicBook/MoonGirlAndDevilDinosaur focused]] works.----